supersmashbro | IC CONTACT

[ Hm... uh oh indeed. ]

Leo gettin' an arm doesn't resolve what it was like to lose it! Dyin' and comin' back doesn't resolve whatever issue made us lose you to start with! So yeah! It's backburner news! 'cause Raph's been managin' fine with this so far, which means Raph can wait! Which means it's not the priority.

[ He's fine. He'll be fine by default. He'll have his bad moments and then he'll get back on the dumb life horse and keep being fine for as long as it takes.

Kinda like how the best thing to do if you get stabbed is to... y'know. Leave the stabby thing in there instead of yanking it out. Controlled bleed. Raph loves having control. ]

[The vitriol in Donnie's glare isn't for Raphael- or at least, not solely for him, not personally, because the most frustrating thing here isn't necessarily that Raph is brushing off something that's wrong with him yet again, the problem is that Donnie knows a couple of years ago he'd have just accepted it.

Not anymore.

He's different. He changed a lot, while Raph wasn't looking, and it's yet another thing these fucking hub worlds have stolen from them; the opportunity to continue growing up and changing together, so they don't have to go through the pain of re-learning each other, so Donnie doesn't have to listen to Raph talk about how because he's been managing that they don't need to talk about what's really the core of the problem here.]

Since when do you get to set my priorities? [Donnie mutters, mutinous, glaring up at his brother, ignoring the way his sinuses are yet again prickling. This isn't fair. This is not fair. He doesn't know how to deal with things like this but get angry about them. Why is he bringing this up with Raph, why is he, with his clumsy, grasping fingers and his razor-sharp focus, why is he the one to latch his teeth into this one sticking point and shaking his head like an angry dog? There's something so wrong with his big brother and now that Donnie's realized it he wants to fix it, but it's something that's been there for years and he's only just now realized that there are bolts missing and panels misaligned in structure he's been living in for years.] I don't get to worry about you? I don't get to try and- and fix your problems, why? I can't do it right? You can't trust me with it?

Edited 2025-06-22 01:26 (UTC)

[ Raph keeps trying to puzzle out what this has to do with anything about the situation at hand. Keeps trying, keeps not finding the answer. Even Donnie's answers don't get him to the answer.

Why is Raph the sticking point all of a sudden? Why has Donnie been setting his jaw and dragging the focus over? If he doesn't wanna talk through what happened with the kidnapping and the experiments and the dying, he doesn't wanna talk about it, fine, they've got time as long as Donnie is here. And Donnie promised he would be here for a good while.

This wasn't in the post-crisis flowchart. There's something Raph's not getting. All he's getting is more frustrated with himself for not getting it. ]

'course I trust you. You're my go-to fixer. [ The big brain. The contingencies. That much is easy enough to say right off the bat. Raph can't say he's perfect with trust, even after Shredder, but he's a lot better at it than he was before. Actively working on it.

He trusts his family. He'd never say they can't worry about him. He only wants them to not have to. ] I just-- I don't get how we're goin' from A to B here, alright? I'm sorry. I don't get it. Or why we're goin' to B at all! You... this whole...

[ Words hard. Direct is best. ]

Why's this matter so much right now?

[ Why this sudden pushback? Why here, today? Or at all? ]

Edited 2025-06-22 16:02 (UTC)

[Donnie shoves himself up off the couch to loom (slightly) over his brother as he shouts, fists clenched between them,]

Because I wanna fix it!

[A crack. A jet of water and sediment.]

Can't I fix this?! [The wall sloughs away.] I can't fix anything for you?! I failed, all right? I get it! I fucked everything up, I hurt people, I don't care enough that I did, and I couldn't even get us back home doing it! I couldn't even fully disprove my own theory because I plain did it wrong! So sue me if I want to fix this one thing!

And you of all people should understand that! You don't get to sit there and tell me you still trust me, that I'm your go-to guy, when you won't even let me do the only fucking thing I'm any good for!

[ So much of Raph's lifestyle revolves around base-level restraint. Redirecting his energy, his too-big feelings, that kinda stuff. He's had to work for it every day since he was a kid.

Not always successfully, of course. Back home there's a hole punched through the side of Leo's subway car room that speaks volumes about how not successful he can be at it.

He puts everything he has into trying to be successfully restrained right here and now. It won't help, he thinks, to push past Donnie and throw something through the window. It won't help, he thinks, to murder another throw pillow, the same way it won't help if he starts crying, it won't help if Raph stops to throw himself a pity party about how he can call himself a big brother when he never once noticed-- all this. This thought, this belief, this reasoning.

Problem is, he doesn't know what will help, either.

He's calm. He's gonna be calm, and calm down, and stay calm, all the calm states of being a turtle can have. He just has to- to be calm. And not whap his clearly emotionally compromised little brother for saying that about himself just because it hurts to hear it and being mad is always easier than being scared. ]

We love you. [ RIP Raph's jaw, clenched to death. ] And we need you. And we'd love you and we'd need you even if you never fixed anythin' ever again! We'd love you and need you even if you got turned into AN ACTUAL WORM, DONATELLO, TRUST AIN'T GOT NOTHIN' TO DO WITH MY STUPID EYEBALL ISSUES YOU LITTLE DINGUS, YOU-- DO YOU EVEN GOT ANY IDEA HOW MUCH RAPH CARES ABOUT YOUR NERDY BUTT NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO OR DO I GOTTA NOOGIE YOU SO HARD IT SCRAMBLES YOUR BRAIN AROUND UNTIL IT STICKS-

[ RIP calmness actually, the love has fused with the hurt and the fear and has to be expressed through all available emergency vents. It's fine and he is DEFINITELY NOT ALMOST CRYING at all. He's just being more right than Donnie is, as proved by him yelling the loudest. ]

[Sometimes a little brother gets so mad that he forgets that the big brother is a) bigger, b) louder, and c) more right than he is. That's when the bigger brother has to assert "I live for you and I love you" dominance, by being bigger and louder and more right when he tells the littler brother that he doesn't have to fix everything to be loved.

A little brother will half-sink into his shell, typical scolding stature, even as he glares tearfully up at a big brother, trying desperately to hold his ground; a struggle entirely in vain. The littler brother cannot and will not succeed.

Because one very irate primary colors catdog will *blip* into existence, put a furious paw on each of them Twister-style, and then *blip* them both ten feet above the nearest lake surface before leaving them to fall in with a mighty KER-SPLOOSH.

Once Donnie recovers from the shock he will just remain sullenly underwater for a minute. Or ten. Unless Raph decides to drag him back to the surface to resume the lecture.]

Edited 2025-06-24 16:51 (UTC)

[ As much as Raph would like to be like oh the audacity of that adorable little guy, he simply doesn't have irritation at Mayhem in him right now. Mayhem is probably extremely justified in doing this.

Even if it does throw Raph's whole lecture off-kilter in a big way, which is to say it has to stop halfway through on account of suddenly being in a lake.

He does not, in fact, immediately drag Donnie to the surface to resume lecturing. He does some semi-frantic twisting around to make sure he's actually here, and that he doesn't look like being underwater is going to re-kill him. And then he's relieved. And then he remembers he's filled with rage.

So you know what, he's just gonna swim back up to the surface ALONE and go POUND SAND ALONE. And KICK ROCKS ALONE. And have a hardcore vent session up here with physical outlets before he maybe reconsiders his stance on dragging Donnie out of the water kicking and screaming.

Only thing he's good for, oh that little fucker, etc etc etc. Stay down there and feel bad!!!!! Whatever!!!!

(... he bets dad would've had a good way to handle this. Somehow.)

Whether Donnie resurfaces on his own or gets hauled by a big mystic hand, it's gonna look like a whole crime scene up here by that point tbh. ]

Edited 2025-06-24 20:43 (UTC)

[Even without looking, Don knows that Raph is probably having one of his Preventative Raph Rages on shore, yelling and growling and throwing boulders around. He sulks in the water, watching some larger rocks plunk into the water and sink to the bottom closer to shore. Raph could have easily thrown them further.

UgggGGHHHH.

Eventually Don allows himself to float back to the surface, though he bobs there facedown like a nasty dead body as a small act of defiance, waiting until a giant red mystic hand grabs him like a naughty parrot and hauls him back to shore.]

[ Aha. There he floats. Like a gross dead body, only a sulky irate teenager ninja turtle who also happens to be alive. Little shit.

Raph mystic scoops him like a dutiful keeper of naughty parrots and deposits him on the ground... mostly gently. Gently enough that it's not NOT gentle. Just in case. ]

You ever say somethin' like that again and Raph's gonna fold you like a paper airplane. Got it?

[ He's got all day and infinite emotional core power to burn. He'll be the angriest affirmation factory ever mutated. And also perhaps the most violent one. ]

[And the mutinous little fucker says, glaring down at the sand like the chickenshit he is,] Which part?

[Like he doesn't know which part Raph hated. Like he hadn't already lost that fight before Mayhem got invovled. Like his big brother didn't just scoop him ever so carefully from the water after terraforming his anger out.]

[ Pizza Supreme give him patience. Because giving him more strength right now would possibly end in a murder. ]

YOU KNOW WHICH PART, DONNIE! [ HE SHOULD DROWN YOU RN. ] No more "only thing I'm good for" bull-hockey outta you! 'cause it's wrong and you know it's wrong and you hate bein' wrong whether or not you do it on purpose!

[ And also it hurts Raph's heart. But that's secondary. ]

[desperately casts about for something he can use to win against his increasingly more right and more angry big brother. don't you dare point out how much he hates being wrong]

Why are you still using words like bull-hockey! Dad's not even here to ground us anymore, and we're eighteen!

[ STOMPS HIS FOOT

STOMPS HIS FOOT SO HARD ]

I use words like bull-hockey 'cause if I let myself start sayin' you're fulla shit every time someone acts up, that'll turn into half the words I ever say to you bozos!

[ See! Fine! He did a swear! But he's still winning, he thinks, so it's. FINE. IT'S FINE. EVERYTHING IS FINE. The siblinghood is reaching critical mass out here. ]

[ALSO STOMPS! It is both literally and figuratively not as impactful!!]

Well what else are we supposed to do besides act up?! It's just been me and Leo for ages! And he has Peter! [The implication here that Donnie has had nobody, which is silly because he still had Leo they both had Rue, and it's never just been one of the brothers having only one other, until it was (Leo and Raph fighting, Donnie and Mikey coping), for months. Until it was Leo alone, for a month, finding Peter and then Donnie alone, for months, because they'd been fighting. And everything was new and horrible, and then it was new again and only somewhat less horrible, because anything new is horrible for Donnie even if it's supposed to be an improvement.

But no, the crux of the problem is,] And you weren't here! And it's not like it's your fault, and I didn't want any of us to be stuck here! I wanted us to go home! I wanna go home, Raph! [Oh...oh this got serious again suddenly. Oh that was not intentional, oh Donnie is on the verge of tears yet again-]

Edited 2025-06-30 01:46 (UTC)

[-SPINS ON HEEL AND RUNS FOR THE LAKE

CAN'T CRY MORE IF YOU'RE ALREADY WET AND ALSO MAYBE YOUR BROTHER CAN'T SEE YOU]

[ eh?

a cartoony blinking dotted outline of where donnie was just standing?

very upsetly? ]

[ GIRL, YOU THOUGHT. ]

OH NO YOU DON'T, MISTER!

[ It's literally no wonder why Mikey workshopped Doctor Delicate Touch so early on. Apparently being yourself just isn't enough to demand that attention sometimes. Raph is putting his own pain at seeing a little brother in pain aside, for now. He'll get back to it later. Put it on the list.

Get GRABBED, Donnie. Get absolutely YOINKED. WE'RE NOT SPRINTING OR DIVING AWAY FROM THIS ONE. ]

[DISAPPEARS INTO SHELL

Maybe brother will mistake him for a rock and skip him across the lake]

[ Absolutely not. This makes Raph's job even easier.

He is KEEPING this shell brother. He's plunking down on the ground with him. And he's gonna hug so hard that he risks being compressed into a turtle diamond in there.

Because if Raph doesn't hug he risks just shaking Donnie around like the little bastard he is, which would be mean what with the crying. ]

[The pancake is flattened further into a crepe in his big brother's loving arms.

Even when the squeezing becomes nigh-unbearable, Donnie still manages to stay in his shell for a good couple minutes before finally popping out, going limp like a wrung out dishrag via some deeply ingrained self-defense mechanism as Raph still continues to squeeze. Thoughtfully, at least. Raph is always careful with them, but...a little more careful with him, and Donnie knows it.

He doesn't say anything though, just letting himself be held and squeezed as if he's one of Raph's teddy bears, simultaneously sulking and feeling terrible for himself, and then genuinely feeling terrible because he hadn't meant to just blurt all of that out. He hadn't meant to come off as...as unhinged. Or like some little child, yelling about wanting to go home. None of them are kids anymore. It's not like he's being beaten to death in the Prison Dimension and thinking about wanting his dad.

He's literally just in some other place.

What's he got to complain about.]

[ Okay, good. If Raph had a strategy, that would be step one successful. Man. Imagine being someone who had a whole strategy instead of feeling like a bull in a maze made of china shops.

The anger sputters out while Donnie is stubbornly becoming a crepe, as fast to leave as it was to flare up. ]

I love you. I'm sorry. [ I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry you're hurting and scared. I'm sorry the project you worked so hard on didn't work. I'm sorry we gotta walk back to the apartment because of the yelling. I'm sorry I yelled. I'm sorry I can't make everything better. I'm sorry pops isn't here. I'm sorry we made you feel like we don't want you forever, no matter what, always. I'm sorry I didn't know you felt like that in the first place.

I'm sorry I got so much stuff to apologize for when I'm supposed to take care of you and keep you safe, and I'm sorry I can't pick just one thing to apologize for, and I'm sorry I can't go down the whole list because the list never ends. ]

Raph wouldn't trust anyone but you to give him a robot eye. Ever. I just-- ain't ready to think about it. That's all. [ He's not sure he could handle the thinking-about-it, let alone the planning-it-then-having-it. The handling of it. He doesn't know how long it would even take to get to being able to handle it. Something in his head that he knows, knows, technically isn't his, but it also feels like his?

Eugh. He's getting the willies just imagining it. Been there, done that, can't convince his brain it wouldn't feel like the exact same thing. Not touching it with a ten foot pole.

(Maybe he should've led with the "not ready." In hindsight. Instead of making Donnie feel like... like all the ways Donnie was feeling about it.)

Which works fine for him, because he thinks it should be lower on the priority list either way. Raph can wait. He can always wait. And he's got brothers to watch his blind spot for him in the meantime. ]

So I'd rather think about all you guys instead. Y'know?

[ Raph has the ever-so-slight suspicion that Donnie does, in fact, very personally know.

Jeez.

What a pair. ]

[Why is he doing this.

Donnie just lays in Raph's arms, though somehow between the two of them shifting it's become more of a half-curl, Raph with an arm beneath his neck and partially his shell and the other over him, holding him, and Donnie with his arms scrunched up and tucked in between them. Like he's a little kid. ...maybe Raph is the little kid in this situation, curling up with something beloved clutched to his chest.

Which is Donnie.

Donnie is the beloved thing.

It's this understanding (which isn't a realization at all, it's a well-understood family dynamic, the kind that exists as a layer between them at all times until it comes up and slaps him hard in the face just how much Raph would do for them) that makes Donnie give in. More than Raph's confession, I just-- ain't ready to think about it, more than that stone-in-the-gut feeling of powerful, dreaded sympathy. So I'd rather think about all you guys instead. Y'know?

Does he know. Of course he knows. Of course he knows. What a pair indeed.]

...I owe you a sprawling session, [Donnie tells Raph quietly, not looking up at him, just resting in his arms. Sure, big man. Take care of him. Maybe he's a little more tired than he thought.]

Edited 2025-07-11 04:58 (UTC)

[ Raph has himself one of the world's most relieved exhales.

This isn't a fix, even he knows that. It's maybe not even a real start on addressing the heart of this whole issue, or the cluster of a bunch of issues that are all tied together like they're one issue.

He doesn't figure he's gonna be the guy who makes the real progress. But he can keep trying. He can be here now. Try to shoulder some weight. ]

Please. [ Sprawling session. Please. ] All tapped out on yellin' for today. Scout's honor.

[ He gets his sprawl, he gets his fussing, his brother is still here. That's something. ]

IC CONTACT | folkmore

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neighbors all about to be like "welp imma head out"

mayhem is literally waking up with death in his eyes before this tag

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